Year || 503 Season || Fall Temp || 35℉ (℃) - 69℉ (℃) Weather || The iron grip of Summer has slowly faded into the gentler Fall embrace. The morning dew frosts over in the early morning hours and melts by the time the sun hits high in the sky. Many of the trees have traded their lush, vivid green for a more suitable array of red and orange hues. But don't blink, for Winter's cold embrace is fast upon Fall's heels.

"Are there lines she's crossing? Should she toe them or touch them with a pole and stay away wholly? But to avoid such a storm he offers, such a taste of life; to withhold herself from the chance to taste starlight, to love satin and silk and swallow pomegranate seeds not yet offered... She should be stronger." — Moira in Small as a wish in a well

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

The earth is a hum beneath his hooves, the night an endless black, set alight by the gold of lit torches. The market thrums in song with the vibrating ground.

In black he slides along within their midst. His skin is darker than the very sky, even midnight is a bright sun compared to him now. Raum is a phantom, a ghost of a Crow, a terror of an assassin. Malevolence gleams from his eye like the spark of a flame. His heart, they say, is a wretched thing. There were no ties to bind them together, no balm to ease the wounds nor medicine to heal the virus of anger that festered and spread like disease.

A dagger glints at his side, the only part of him that the light is allowed to touch. It is a small concession, the only chance he ever offers his foe – his victim. To see him, is to know the fate he has drawn out for them in blood and sinister retribution.

Though his skin is not quicksilver now, his limbs still move like liquid. In motion the Crow something other, no longer slashing claws and a snapping beak, but the silent, fluid grace of a feather with edges of cut glass.

Black eyes tip up to the sky, their electric blue remaining only in speckles of electricity that seem to spark ruthlessly, keenly, hungrily. He blinks and offers the sky no more of him and turns into the shadows, blacker than black.

This place is so new and different, so strange and yet oddly satisfying. There’s something about the Night Court that she loves. Despite the recent destruction, there’s a sense of community and she can sense it. She can feel the way the others pull together to help out and she can sense the way that this place has attracted strangers from another court and despite their differences, they work together. Yes, Katniss likes the Night Court. She feels a part of it, even though she has only arrived.

As the sun sets in the west, Katniss meanders through the court. So many have homes already designated but she has not found herself a place to settle down. She’s not used to living behind closed doors, preferring to live beneath the stars as nature had intended. It helps that the court is riddled with stone, remnants of a once great gathering place. It would have to be rebuilt, she was sure of it. And in fact, she intended to help.

The crickets chirp around her and she sighs softly in contemplation. She’s thinking about The Rift, about Metaphor, and about her home. She wonders briefly if Metaphor is alive…and if his heart years for her as hers does him. But this was not a time to dwell on love, when the world was falling apart around her. The Night Court needed her help and so, she put away those silent thoughts, intent to bring them out another day.

Eyes look above her to peer at the constellations. She wonders if they are guiding people closer or if the Gods live among them. It’s a peaceful reflection and she can feel the way a calmness rolls over her…until that calmness turns into uneasiness.

Her eyes slowly lower from the starts and peer around her. Someone is here. Something is moving amongst the shadows and it makes the warrior uneasy. It is now that she wishes she had her armor – something far more protective than only her skin and fur. “Who lurks within the shadows?” Her voice is soft as her eyes scan for movement. She thinks she see the flicker of light and her eyes search harder for the source. “Show yourself.” Perhaps it is simply another member of the Night Court – something that she cause her no distress. But until they say something, she continues to search for the figure in the night.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

Who lurks within the shadows? The warrior breathes and Denocte’s Ghost does not even blink at her question.

Neither is he stirred by her demand that comes next. No words, no viperous bite of her tongue could pull him from them. The Crow has become as black as night, his skin swallowing shadows like an abysmal maw.

He does not bring his scarf, yet he feels its weight about his throat all the same. He feels just how it would slide against the soft of her throat, nestling into the curve beneath her jaw and there, waiting to be pulled, tighter and tighter still.

Yet, like water from a wing, he shrugs away such thoughts. The Crow has been raised a murderer and now, it was all he knew. That and his religion. He was born into black, and now he adorns himself in it too.

She turns, this girl. She looks hither and thither. Her eyes pass over him, once, twice and still she does not inspire him to move. Oh he watches her, he studies her. The curve of her body, the way she moves. Raum is silent, an artist, a dancer of an assassin. Murder is his dance and silence his song.

“What good would it do me to obey your command?” He asks of her, a voice like silk, oh yes, akin to the one that might tighten about her throat (if he had it with him). The Ghost still remembers the way his lover fought the noose he held her in. He should feel more…

And yet this Crow is empty. He feels nothing of love, this radical, radical Crow. “If you wish to know who I am, then come to me.”

Still he stands, watching her as she watches him. Behind her is a stall from which he stole his daughter’s dagger. He remembers her smile, the way he drowned in the blue of her gaze.

Darkness had once scared the mare. Darkness had taken over her a time or two and had drawn her thoughts into something that she was not proud of. It had been darkness that had forced her to abandon her newborn fillies, darkness that had found her after Metaphor had left her. But darkness would not win tonight. Darkness would be squashed like the bugs that unfortunately got caught beneath her hooves. Darkness no longer scared her – it challenged her to be something greater and greater is what she would become.

And so, she stands confidently as she awaits the other to speak or move. She knows he’s there. She can hear the way his lungs take in breath and she can feel the way his heart beats. She is just waiting for him to decide to finally speak, to announce his presence and give up the element of surprise…though he never had it to begin with.

And when he speaks, her scanning eyes lock onto his form, the whites of his eyes giving himself away. “It was more a suggestion than a command.” Katniss knew that she was not in charge here, but she had been tasked with protecting this land and her queen. After all, she needed to know that this stranger (at least he was a stranger to her) was friend and not foe.

She’s already stepping closer to him, before he even beckons her towards him. But she is not stupid enough to come too close. She does not know what he’s hiding that could potentially harm her. And so she watches him. “I am not foolish enough to come closer. Are you friend? Or Foe?” She is not naïve enough to think he will answer truthfully, but it would be a gateway to further questions. Perhaps he was friend with ill intentions. The possibilities were endless.